Pick your metaphor

Oh yeah, I suppose I should address our game this weekend.

Sigh.

It wasn't good. The offense played hot potato with the football. The special teams were sub-par. There were many poor or questionable coaching decisions. And the defense couldn't catch a cold.

After each of our previous losses this season, I've tried to look at the big picture. Although we still have a chance to make a bowl game and show improvement this season, the overall numbers are not good, and it does seem like they will improve anytime soon. O fer October in two years. 3-10 in Big Ten play. Out gained by every BCS opponent this year.

So where do we go from here? This loss has definitely brought out the pitchforks in some places and there are plenty of people who want to jettison Rich Rod now. But if you listen to comments made by school president Mary Sue Coleman, that's not going to happen this or next year. He's here through 2011, unless he chooses to leave, which is also unlikely given that he'd owe us a big buyout if he quit.

Personally, I'm glad the people in power have some patience. As frustrating as the last two years have been, firing RR now would put the program back and would potentially extend our walk in the wilderness. While I still support the coach, I have a hard time arguing now with those who say he's a bad fit here or will never be successful here.

Other thoughts:
-It's amazing to watch all the SEC slappies in the media get all over Iowa for trailing Indiana after three quarters, or for getting some questionable calls in the game. Didn't Alabama need a last second blocked field goal to beat a mediocre Tennessee team (hello, we lost at home to UCLA), and didn't Florida get some referee gifts to beat Arkansas? Now, I'm not saying that Iowa should be ranked ahead of those teams, it's just that the vitriol pointing there way seems out of place.
-Wow, Oregon. Chip Kelly's gonna get some coach of the year consideration, which is amazing since after week one, it looked like he was in over his head. Now that's what the spread option offense is supposed to look like.
-MSU's loss at Minnesota was almost as bad as Michigan's at Illinois. Ok, maybe not that bad, but it still puts them in a bad position. They now need to beat either Penn State at home or Purdue on the road to go bowling (assuming they beat WMU). I don't understand why Keith Nichol is still getting any playing time. I also don't see how you give up 42 points to a team that has 17 penalties for over 150 yards. Dantonio's lucky that Michigan has been so bad the last two years. Otherwise the main local story this year would be about the "Same Old Spartans".
-The Pizza Pizza bowl must be licking their chops. With both Michigan and MSU looking like they won't get above six wins, if they make it that far, there's a non-zero chance that they could get one of the two local teams. With CMU still in the running for the MAC title, they have a good chance to sell out Ford Field. Anyone interested in watching CMU carve up Michigan's secondary? How about MSU-CMU II?

Ride Captain Ride

News came down from on high today that Bill Martin will be hanging it up as AD by next September. Now while most of us wouldn't know what makes a good AD, I think it's pretty clear that Bill Martin has been one of the best ADs in the country for the last ten years. To recap some of his accomplishments:
-He took an athletic department that was opertaing at a loss each year and made it one of the most profitable departments in the country, even without luxury boxes.
-He dramtically improved the facilities here, including a new football practice facility, new soccer stadium, boxes at Yost, new basketball practice facility, new wrestling facility, new varsity tennis complex, new academic support center for athletes, a renovated baseball and softball complex, and of course, the new suites and press box at Michigan Stadium. It is easily the most prolific building period in the history of athletics at the university.
-He helped provide a new emphasis on women's athletics, leading to our first ever women's national championship (2oo1 in field hockey).
-Eight top five finishes in the last ten years in the Director's, or Sears Cup, the annual award given by the NCAA to the school that finishes with the best overall placements in their top 10 men's sports and top 10 women's sports. These finishes have come against a number of schools that have extraordinarily large private endowments (like Stanford), or sponsor more sports than Michigan due to climate or size of athletic department (like Texas).
-Despite some high profile misses in coaching hires (Tommy Amaker, Bob Bowman), he has made some outstanding hires -- John Beilein, Rich Maloney, Marcia Pankratz and Rich Rodriguez -- that have put a number of the athletic programs in good hands for years to come.

All in all, it's safe to say that not since Don Canham retired has Michigan had such a successful AD. Here's hoping his successor has half his business sense.

Bullets:
-Not much to talk about with the Delaware State game -- both teams got the cash they needed out of the deal, the Hornets their 500k payout, which probably paid their season expenses, and Michigan their $4 million gate, which paid for a few different non-revenue sports
-From my vantage point, the national championship pecking order looks as follows:
1) Alabama / Florida winner (assuming they are undefeated)
2) Texas
3) Iowa
4) Cinncy
5) Boise
6) TCU
7) Alabama / Florida loser (or 1-loss SEC team)

Actually if the championship game is not a rematch, I think the one loss SEC team shoots above the two mid-majors, and maybe even above an undefeated Cinncy.
-I'll be interested to see how many of the SEC slappies who cried injustice at the idea of a rematch 3 years ago will now campaign for the loser of the SEC championship game to get a second bite at the apple.
-I'm not buying this "woe-is-me" routine from the Buckeyes and their fans. No matter how awful they look and how many games they lose between now and November 21, I'll still expect Pryor to go 28-32 for 350 yards and 4 TDs against us.
-A weird line for this weekend's games: Iowa @ MSU is a pick'em. Now I know it's tough to win on the road in the Big Ten, but Iowa already won by 11 in a night game at Penn State. Do the oddsmakers really think Penn State is 11 points worse than MSU?

More from The List

You may remember from earlier this year, we introduced the first few members of our list, those people that we would banish if we were in charge, for no other reason than we wanted to and could because we were in charge. This list is limited to sports figures, as clearly there are more evil people in the world that would be banished long before any sports figure.

We start at #5 -- Colin Cowherd -- ESPN Radio blowhard
I spend a lot of my free time reading, talking, watching, listening to, and thinking about sports. i spend a lot of my time that supposed to be spent on other things thinking, watching, and reading about sports. I don't understand how people who are paid to do the same thing I do for fun get their facts wrong on such a regular occasion. I understand that radio talk show hosts are trying to provoke listeners, and unpopular opinions are one of the best ways to do that. But please back up your opinions with some evidence. I also understand that a national host doesn't follow teams as obsessively as fans or local beat writers do, but spend a little time doing some research, or get one of the multitude of flunkies working for you to look things up. Cowherd is just one of many hosts to have the same problem, he stands in for the entire group due to the plagiarism issues in his past and a recent show discussing college football when he claimed that "Penn State had handled Michigan pretty well" in the last few years (they are 1-9 in their last 10 meetings).

6, 7, 8) Jim Delany, Mike Slive, & Roy Kramer -- Godfather of the BCS and its current champions
I'll admit that my distaste for Delany is not in my team's best interests. Delany's (and Slive's and Kramer's) support of the BCS is what is in the best interests of the schools in the Big Ten and SEC that they represent. The BCS keeps those two conferences rich, along with the ACC, Big 12, Big East and Pac 10, to a lesser extent, and is the biggest single thing that keeps programs like Michigan on top of the college football heap, money wise.
But like most college football fans, I want to see a playoff. And Slive and Delany, and the universities they represent, are the biggest roadblocks to that.

This and That

-Yeah Vanderbilt!! For the first time in almost a generation, the Commodores are going bowling, by virtue of their win over Kentucky. In this season of ultimate suffering for Michigan fans, something like Vandy's win helps to put things in perspective. Yes no bowl sucks, but can you imagine no bowl for the next 25 years?
-Mark Dantonio would do a lot better as a coach if he could just stop sticking his foot in his mouth at press conferences. Last year, of course, he got into a war of words with Michigan RB Mike Hart after losing to Michigan. Now this week, when asked about Saturday's Michigan / Ohio State clash responded that with a "Go Bucks" Now normally an MSU rooting against Michigan would be no big story. But in this case, State needs a Michigan win along with an MSU win over Penn State to win the Big Ten title outright and go to the Rose Bowl. So Dantonio would be willing to trade State's first Rose Bowl in two decades, and only their second in forty years to see Michigan lose its final game of the year in a season that long ago lost any meaning for Wolverine fans. In other words, he essentially told spartan fans that hating Michigan is more important than rooting for Michigan State. The fact that some many State fans agree with that sentiment tells you a lot about why they have been a second rate program for the last 40 years.
-I think the Rodriguez "Get a Life" comment was overplayed and taken out of context, but I do wish that he would just put his head down, quit trying to explain anything, and work on making next year and the year after that better. We had a bad year, people are going to kick us when we are down, nothing we can do about that. We just have to work our way through it.
-This coming weekend is the last weekend for most of the FCS teams. I'm going to try and forecast the playoff pairings after I get done with this week's rankings. A good explanation of the specifics of the playoffs can be found here.
-I think the ACC should forgo all their bowl games, and just play other ACC teams, those will be far more entertaining, since all the teams are evenly matched. Other than Duke and NC State, the entire league is between 3-3 and 4-2 in conference.
-If the Big Ten gets two teams in the BCS they could be an underdog in all, or almost all of their bowl games. Penn State vs USC in the Rose, OSU vs the SEC CG loser in the Sugar, MSU vs either Georgia or LSU in the Cap One, Northwestern against the other in the Outback, Wisconsin vs Oklahoma State in the Alamo, Iowa vs Kansas in the Insight, Illinois vs some random ACC team in the Micron PC, and Minnesota vs Ball State or CMU in the Motor City. I know a lot can change in a few weeks, but that doesn't look like a good bowl season for the Big Ten.

Take One

Well, at least we have something to go on now, some sort of clue of what the season will look like: wildly inconsistent, with some promise of better things to come in the future. Luckily, we are not expecting much of the season.
-The defense looked rather porous early. I think some of that was play calling, some of that was poor play, especially from the linebackers. On several plays it looked to my untrained eye that new OLBs Marrell Evans and Austin Painter got lost in coverage and let slot receivers get open. Safety Stevie Brown misplayed an angle that led to the big play that set up Utah's first TD.
-Defense was far better in the second half. Part of this was Utah letting off the pedal a little and not passing as much. But part of this was better LB play from Artis Chambers and Jonas Mouton who got extra playing time. In both halves, the Dline play was excellent. I believe they had 3 sacks, a bunch of hurries, and a few forced holding calls.
-Hopefully the defensive staff will get the right guys out there to start the game next week and we'll see more of the 2nd half defense.
-The offense clearly has a long way to go. The line did okay in pass protection, but didn't run block very well. I wonder how much of this falls on the young C/G combo of Mooseman and Molk.Maybe it's just the inner Lloyd Carr in me talking, but I would have liked to have seen more comittment to the run.
-Skill position talent (Shaw, McGuffie, Odoms, Minor, Stoneum, Matthews, Butler) made a number of missteps, but you can see the promise there. I think that this is area where the offense will improve the most. In a couple of weeks, they will make better reads and we will see more yards out of short flare passes and zone reads
-The one area I don't hold out much hope for is QB. It seems clear that Sheridan has a pretty low ceiling. He's not very accurate and made a couple of horrible reads that led to picks. Threet throws a better deep ball, but doesn't look like he can run the zone read very well.
-All in all, not as devastating a loss as last year. Utah is perhaps the fourth or fifth best team on our schedule, and despite being totally outplayed in the first half, we still almost won the game. i still think 7-5 is doable, with an outside shot at 8-4.

Elsewhere:
-The Big Ten still sucks. Yes the top three teams all won functional DNP games, but three other potential contenders (MSU, Ill, & UM) lost hard fought games. What makes those games difficult to take is that all three teams appear to be outclassed by their opponents.
-Notre Dame fans have to be licking their chops. Their first three opponents SDSU, UM, & MSU all lost. SDSU lost to FCS team UC Davis.
-MSU looks like they found their replacement to Devin Thomas. Mark Dell went off for 200+ yards. Now if they could only get the Oline to block for Ringer and Hoyer, they will be ok.
-I like the way Missouri's schedule sets up with a season starting game in St. Louis with Illinois, and season ending game in KC with Kansas. Hopefully they give season ticket holders their choice of one of the two games in the season ticket package.
-I think UCLA's win over Tennessee shows why all the love for the SEC might be a little overstated. Tennessee has more talent than UCLA as just about every position, and really shouldn't have lost to a team starting their 3rd string QB who lost three senior starters on offense in the first quarter. But those sort of games happen early in the season when you have youth at key positions and you have to make long road trips. As has been pointed out here before, SEC teams rarely travel outside of the south. If the SEC teams traveled as much as Pac 10 teams, or even as much as Big Ten teams, their non conference records would be closer to where the other conferences are at.
-I have some pictures of the stadium that I will post soon, along with some thoughts on changes in the gameday atmosphere.

This and That

Sorry about the absence of bracketology this week, work and AG stuff are eating up a lot of time. I will post something after the weekend.

Ok, I know everybody loves trades, but sometimes the best trade are the ones you don't make. In the last couple of weeks, I think a couple of different western conference contenders have made trades that made them weaker in the short and long run. Phoenix traded fantasy superstar Shawn Marion to Miami for The big aristotle, Shaq. Now I realize that the Suns felt like they had to deal Marion who had been fueding with Amare Stoudamire and was making noise about bolting at the end of the year as a free agent. But Shaq? Even in his prime, Shaq wouldn't have fit the Suns run n' gun style. Now, five years past his prime, he is going to grind them to a halt and make them a team with no discernible identity come the playoffs. This is kinda like a Mike Martz offense taking the best blocking fullback in the draft. The palyer the Suns really could have used was Pau Gasol, whose trade to the Lakers seemed to be the catalyst for the Suns panic move.
-It also seems to me that Dallas gave up just a little too much to get an aging point guard, who has been good, but not great in past playoffs. They gave up their best young PG in Devin Harris, and with Desagna Diop gone, they are mighty thin up front, especially when you consider that the defending champs, San Antonio just got deeper by acquiring Kurt Thomas from Seattle.

-The M basketball team has put on a nice little run, with consecutive wins vs Penn State, @ Iowa and vs OSU. Maybe, just maybe Beilein's system is starting to sink in with his very young team. The schedule is favorable the rest of the way (@Minn, Ill, @ PSU, NW, & Purdue) and it looks like they could get some much need momentum towards recruiting season and towards next year.

-I'm glad to see that the UofM AD has finally decided to honor Jalen Rose for the work he's done with his foundation. It's not quite a jersey retirement ceremony, but it's time we realize that the sins of Mr. Webber shouldn't be visited on all of the Fab Five. Those guys represent an important time in the history of Michigan basketball, and they should be recognized for their contributions to the program. If it were up to me, I would raise a banner that just said "Fab Five" on it. Invite Rose, Howard, King and Jackson back, and tell Webber he can come back when he makes a public apology. Enough time has past, we don't have to be embarassed about their success anymore.

-For any sane Penn State fan, the idea that Joe Paterno has out lasted Fidel Castro has to be soul crushing.

-Interesting stat: Road conference record the last three years:
Michigan 6-17
Michigan State 5-17
Hmmmm. For an "elite" team, MSU sure does lose a lot of games.

-The NBA all-star game just doesn't do it for me. I've heard pundits compare it to the Super Bowl in terms of events surrounding the game. I never even realize what weekend it is until I check my fantasy team the friday night before the game and see that no one has played. Even the slam-dunk contest seems kinda boring after a while.

-Speaking of over-hyped events, I was surprised to find out recently that this year was the 50th running of the Daytona 500. I would have sworn it was older than that. I know that NASCAR has seen a big surge in popularity the last decade or two, but it was around prior the WWII, wasn't it? Maybe if NASCAR is only a little more than a generation or two old, there is still time for it to die down, fade back into obscurity and quite taking valuable time on Sportscenter away from real sports, like hockey.

-I wanted to highlight a great piece of writing by SMQ about the relationship between the Big Ten and the SEC. I don't know how terribly accurate it is, but anyone who can include a bob dylan lyric in a college football post deserves props.

-It amazes me how stupid big time athletes are at times, and how much their ego gets in their way when they are not on the playing field. Roger Clemens will probably be on the outside looking in to Cooperstown, instead of being a first ballot Hall of Famer, because he isn't willing to admit that he used enhancements at a time when many other players (maybe even most) were using them and baseball did nothing to officially discourage them. It's real simple. Americans will forgive almost anything if you tell them the truth. Pete Rose would be in the Hall of Fame now if he had told the truth 20 years ago. Same is likely true for Mark Mcgwire. American history in the 20th century is littered with public figures who have sinned but survived because they confessed their transgressions. If Clemens releases a simple statement when the Mitchell report came out (I did it, I was wrong, I'm sorry I let the fans down), this would be a non-story right now, instead of a televised congressional hearing. The more Clemens denies the story, the more he twists the knife in his own back.

The passion of southern football

Golden has made an interesting post discussing the source of southern passion for college football. His argument can be pretty simply summarized:

TO WHITE SOUTHERNERS, COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS A WAY TO REFIGHT THE CIVIL WAR.

He does a good job explaining what it meant to grow up in the post civil war south, and the combination of pride, guilt, and anger that many southerners felt about the civil war, and how southern football heros of the past, such as Bear Bryant filled the need for a hero and some redemption against the focal point of much of that anger, Northerners.

Leaving aside the political incorrectness of this argument (good luck finding any SEC coach to admit they are refighting the civil war), he glosses over one major point against his premise: Most players students, and fans of SEC teams can not trace their family back to the Confederacy. In fact it is not a stretch to say that most people who live in the most populous places in the south were born or grew up somewhere else. In 1960, none of the southern states that contain the SEC schools had more than 5 million people in it, and the total population of the conference footprint was approximately 26 million. By 2007, Florida and Georiga alone had 27 million people. While Golden's point was certainly true 30 or 40 years ago, it has less relevance today. I highly doubt that Glen Dorsey or Early Ducet feel any connection to Robert E. Lee. Certainly the best coaches in the SEC (Saban, Meyer, Miles), who were all born in Ohio, feel no need to fight for the stars and bars

So why is the passion for college football so great in the SEC? Because for the better part of the last century, college football was the only game in town. For me, growing up in Ann Arbor, as much as I loved Michigan football, I always looked forward to going to Tiger games, or following the Wings or the Pistons in the playoffs. There is a shared history for Michigan residents with these teams, just as there is with Michigan football. To a typical SEC fan, there are limited sports options outside of college football, and those options that do exist don't have the history that helps to ignite and maintain passion. There are only 18 major professional teams in the SEC footprint, and only six of them (Dolphins, Bucs, Falcons, Saints, Braves and Hawks) have been in existence for more than 20 years. None of them predate 1960. In contrast, there are 28 professional teams in the Big Ten footprint, and only three of them (Blue Jackets, Timberwolves, and Wild) are less than 20 years old. Many of the baseball teams are more than 100 years old. SEC spring games get 50,000 fans because there are no major league baseball, basketball, or national hockey league games to draw fans.

The passion of SEC fans is about history, but not the history that Golden refers to in his post. It's the history of organized sports in the south, and the absence of any real alternatives to college football that make such a big deal.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

I don't understand why everyone seems to think the SEC is all that great. Every time we play them we win (13-4-1 all time now, including 7-3 in bowl games) Don't know why the Buckeyes seem to have so much trouble;-)

All kidding aside, what a great win against a very dangerous offensive team. The coaching staff gets all the credit in the world for coming out swinging, and not letting up on the offense all game. While fans around the country might think this was something radically different for Michigan, this is actually something that Michigan fans recognize. For a long time Michigan fans have lamented Lloyd Carr's "two offenses" philosophy. Carr has admitted in the past that the offense has two purposes, one is to score, the other is to possess the ball to keep it away from the other team. This philosophy manifests itself most of the time in a conservative, run or die trying offense that is the dinosaur that most fans associate with Michigan. But sometimes when Michigan gets down big, or needs to score late in a game, they will come out in four or five wide and will throw the ball all over the field. The difference in this game is that they played the entire game as if they were down 14 midway through the fourth quarter.
-They also added a number of trick plays, or variations of things that they normally don't run. The attempted a pass to tackle Jake Long. They ran a number of WR sweeps to Manningham. They ran a throw back pass where Manningham threw it back to Henne who threw it down field. They ran a beautiful throw back screen to TE Carson Butler that went for big yards. Basically they left no stone unturned, and tried everything but the kitchen sink. It was a thing of beauty, and something Michigan fans have been clamoring for for a long time. I wonder if Rich Rod offered any help with the game plan.
-Henne and Arrington probably made themselves a bunch of money today. There will be other QBs taken ahead of Henne, but he could be a real steal for some team. His performance today was the best by a Michigan QB since Tom Brady's 3-TD, 369 yard game against Alabama in the 2000 Orange bowl. Hopefully Arrington will be back next year, but he looked like the next great Michigan receiver. It would be a huge plus for us if Rich Rod can convince him and Super Mario to return.
-I think today's game, and the preparation leading up to demonstrate why Scott Loeffler and Erik Campbell should be rehired.
-If anyone tries to tell you that this was a win for midwest muscle over southern speed, tell them to go back and check the tape. Michigan was the faster team. Yes, Harvin is very fast, but Michigan's receivers ran circles around the Florida DBs. The Michigan Dline dominated the Florida offensive line by stunting and blitzing them to death.
-So what does this win mean in the grand scheme of things? They broke their bowl losing streak, showed an exciting, dynamic offense, and beat one of college football's "golden boys" in Urban Meyer. It means that we aren't as stuck in the stone ages as had been talked about. The transition to Rich Rod might not be as painful as we thought. The Michigan personnel isn't as incompatible with the spread as some in the media suggested. The next month or so should be very interesting, with new coaches, and new recruiting news almost every day.
-Finally, this win just feels right because of Lloyd's departure. He's a real mensch who always cared about developing men as much as developing players. It just wouldn't have been right for him to leave with a three game losing streak.

Other Stuff:
-Memo to the *uckeye fans who were congratulating Michigan fans on the win Thanks, but don't go thinking that our win tells us anything about your game with LSU. The team that played today was totally different than the one you beat in November: focused, healthy, and loose. If they played against you the way they did today, you'd have lost to Florida today, while we would have been subjected to another loss to USC in the Rose Bowl. And of course, LSU doesn't the same weaknesses Florida does on defense.
-Too bad the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl couldn't have switched opponents to create USC-Georgia and Illinois-Hawaii match-ups. Those would have been a lot more compelling. I like that the lower conferences have a shot at the BCS now (albeit a slim one). Hawaii deserved a BCS bid, just like the champion of the Atlantic Sun deserves a spot in the Big Dance. The fact that they were blown out doesn't change that. Illinois, on the other hand, didn't belong in the Rose Bowl. Certainly not when Missouri was available. I wouldn't be surprised if they a big disappointment next year and miss a bowl game.
-As an outsider, I like the Neuheisel hire by UCLA. Despite his past transgressions, he will bring a an excitement to the program, and might be just the guy to match Pete Carroll's youthful exuberance. If he gets Norm Chow as his OC, things could get real exciting in the City of Angels.

This and that

Some assorted thoughts that I've been holding on to:
-Although I was kinda rooting for Central Michigan to pull off the upset over Purdue, I am glad to see the Boilers win, as it could be the only win that the Big Ten gets this bowl season. MSU, Michigan, and Illinois are huge underdogs, with Michigan and Illinois playing against top ten teams with top five talent. Ohio State and Penn State are playing virtual road games. Wisconsin is in a pick'em game, and who knows what to expect from Indiana after a 15 year bowl drought. Part of the problem for the Big Ten, apart from the travel issues (Big Ten teams always travel further than their opponents) is that Big Ten teams are often playing teams that are higher ranked in their conference. Wisconsin, 4th in the Big Ten plays the SEC runner-up Tennessee. #6 MSU plays ACC runner-up Boston College. I would like to see a revision of the bowl selection process that would rectify this problem, and would also vary the match-ups from year to year, so that teams don't go to the same bowls year in and year out. The six BCS conferences choose three bowls as the "second place" bowls (say, Capital One, Cotton, and Holiday), three as the third place bowls, three as the fourth place, etc. Each of the bowls in a particular group gets a chance to select any team in their particular slot. So for instance, the Capital One, Cotton, and Holiday would match-up the top non-BCS teams from the six BCS conferences. The Third place bowls would get the next choice, the fourth place the choice after that and so on.
-I wonder if Texas fans are more happy at their team's 7th straight 10 win season, or disappointed that they appear to underachieve once again. Looking back, there is no way they should have lost to Kansas State or Texas A&M. If they win those two, they could've been in New Orleans instead of San Diego. They are very young, and have a fairly easy schedule next year. They should make a serious push.
-Why the heck did Southern Miss can Jeff Bower? What more do they think their program should be? Bower gave them 17 years, 14 straight winning seasons, 119 wins, nine bowl games in the last ten years, three out of the four last conference championships. He is an alum who married a local beauty queen. He wasn't going anywhere, and he's gotten more out of that program than anyone else could reasonably expect. They're in freakin' Hattiesburg, do they really think there is a coach out there that can take them to the BCS? Within two years, if not sooner, they'll regret their decision.
-Speaking of traveling, the Wizard of Odds has an interesting post about the amount of miles travelled by college football teams for non-conference games in the last ten years (HT: EDSBS) While some of the results are too be expected, BCS conference teams travel less than BCS conference teams, eastern teams travel less than western teams, some of the results are surprising in their degree. We knew that SEC teams rarely traveled outside of the south, but we didn't realize it was so pronounced. In the last ten years Georgia has traveled a total of 358 miles for non-conference regular season games. Compare that to the 23 thousand miles logged by USC, or the 11 thousand Michigan has travelled. When you consider that 8 of the 10 least travelled teams are from the SEC, and only one team in the league, Alabama has averaged more than 1,000 miles a year, and you get some idea of why the SEC has accumulated the non-conference record it has. So the next time you hear someone ramble on about the superiority of the SEC, remind them that the average SEC team has traveled 350 miles per year to non conference games in the last decade, while Big Ten teams went almost 1,000 miles, while PAC Ten teams put in 1,500. And, of course, there's that whole home bowl game thing.
-Not to keep flogging a deceased equine, but I was very interested in the news that Les Miles called Rich Rodriguez to congratulate him on getting the Michigan job. According to Rich Rod's mother Miles thanked him for losing to Pitt but joked that the loss cost him his dream job. There's a little truth in all humor, right? How much do you want to bet that Miles would have given up the chance to coach in the championship game to come to Michigan? He really needs to stop thinking about the Michigan job, or he's going to get killed on the recruiting trail.
-Finally saw HBO's "The Rivalry" the other night. There are certainly some elements that are well done, but I had to agree with most of the criticism I heard from other people: it is definitely told more from the Ohio State perspective than the Michigan perspective; there should have been more about what Schembechler's passing meant to Michigan fans, than what it meant to Buckeye fans; there was no mention of Lloyd Carr, which is ridiculous; they could have included a lot more on Bob Ufer; they left out a number of interesting items from the ten year war, the buckeyes tearing down the M club banner, the Michigan fan dotting the "i", "Save Fuel, Burn Woody bumper stickers", etc. All in all a great show, but with a few tweaks could have been better.
-In all the hubub after the OSU game, Carr's retirement, etc, I forgot to send out an attaboy to our spartan brethern for their two game winning streak to end the season and their invite to the Champs Tangerine Micron PC Sports Bowl. After they lost to Michigan and Coach Dantonio got involved in a pissing match with Mike Hart, they had the look of a typical spartan team about to collapse down the stretch and blow their shot at the post season. But they pulled it together and beat two straight bowl teams to end the season on a winning streak for the first time in forever. Even if they get torched by BC in today's game, this has been a positive first season for Dantonio, and spartan fans should be very pleased with the progress. Now if he can just find a way to beat big brother ;-)

Comissioners, recruiting, and busted brackets

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

One of the more interesting developments in college basketball in the last couple of years is the emergence of ESPN’s Bracket Buster Day. Basically, ESPN has convinced about half of the Division One teams in the country not to schedule any games on one day. ESPN then arranges match-ups for all of those teams, where each team plays someone from another conference that they normally wouldn’t play. It’s great for college basketball fans, especially those who follow the mid-major conferences. It is, however, a royal pain in the you know what for someone trying to maintain a basketball ranking database ;-)
Bracket Buster was last Saturday. The real winners from a conference standpoint were the Horizon and WAC, who both went 7-2. On the other end of the scale, the Ohio Valley went 2-9. The most impressive victory went to Southern Illinois, which scored its first victory on the road against a ranked team since 1976, when it won by 4 at Butler. Also scoring a big win was Winthrop, which won at Missouri State.

Golden’s comment about the disappointing class from Ohio State illustrates one of the problems with the recruiting rankings. All of the different recruiting rankings base their overall scores on the number of recruits a school signs. In terms of average # of stars per recruit, OSU had a top five class. But because they signed half as many as some of the SEC schools, they appeared to have a “mediocre” class.
This brings up another interesting point. SEC schools traditionally “over sign” players. That is they sign more players than they have scholarships for, assuming that some will fall by the wayside. An interesting examination of this is found here.

This is of course is what Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney was responding to in his quite surprising broadside of the SEC. While I agree with much of what Delaney was saying, I’m not sure that it’s really an argument that a league commissioner should be making. Yes the SEC schools do operate a little differently when it comes to marginalizing players who don’t make the cut and cutting academic corners for their “student”-athletes (see Auburn independent study programs), but it’s not like the Big Ten is squeaky-clean. One look at the typical Ohio State linebacker’s class load will confirm that. The argument Delaney is making falls into an old regional stereotype of southerners as dimwitted that dates back almost 200 years. It’s no truer than the old yarn about southern teams being “faster” and northern teams being more “powerful.” Leave that argument to the fans on the message boards and in the bars. Stick to making sure the Big Ten network finds its way onto every local cable station, and find a way to make a playoff work in college football.